WANNA BE

INTRODUCTION:

In everyone person's life, there is an inner existence that pushes them to be. Once placed here upon this earth from infancy and into youth curiosity pulls them forward into what exists around them. As they become aware of the variety of things about them, they endeavor to relate to each new experience whether driven by the internal or the external prompt of other creation. In this world, anyone and everyone can be defined as a......

WANNA BE

My best friend told me that she was a quadroon. I, or at least she, supposed it was something which made her more important than Marsha, Cheryl or myself. The four of us had been together since first grade with the major difference in our lives being the place in which we slept our parents homes. We walked to school together. We sat in the same class. Talked to, about and despised the same boys. They ate the same lunch. Played the same games at recess. Liked most of the same things at school at home and at play. with all of this SAMENESS, I wonder what had happened to make her turn into a quadroon... ? (And) for that matter what was it and did it mean she could no longer play with us. Carmella gazed often at each of the friends during recess. She thought even more often of what differences there were. Looking at Marsha, she could see the thick black braids made of strands of hair which seemed to wrap around the next. She had hair which seemed to hold onto itself. No horsetail hair here. This hold myself hair was good to have, or so Carmella thought. It looked strong and fit Marsha's face just fine. It was always neat and never flying away all over her head... but it was not "horsetail hair". Marsha was brown skinned. Brown like the morning cocoa that Carmella's grandmother prepared each morning. Cocoa Brown. Not too tall ~ a head shorter than the other girls and always a bit chubby, but just as nice to each of them. Marsha was not allowed to play often, probably because she had important things to do; but was just as involved with the game at hand when she did get out. She was particular about getting dirty and never roasted worms or shopped for "playhouse " grocery, but she was one of the group just as well. She rarely wore anything special that the other girls could notice, but was always accepted, and she accepted them. She was one of cc three girls, born to two chocolate parents... Randy and her mom, I really never knew her name... she was always Marsha's mom to me... All three girls looked the same but were of different heights, Marsha was the oldest. Her dad drove a bus her mom worked out of the home, some one mentioned once (to my ears that were not supposed to hear) that she did book keeping. Marsha and her family lived behind us at an angle to the giant cottonwood tree that we climbed for security from the evils of our impending classmates.... usually the boys.

Cheryl was dark chocolate ~ like deep dark baker's chocolate; with dark chocolate parents and one dark chocolate brother. She reminded you of the little bear on Cocoa Puffs ~ this prompted Rosa to give her the nick name "Coco Bear." A name which stuck painfully through grade and junior high school. Cheryl had that same "hold myself hair" with miniature waves. Though she rarely wore braids, we could tell her hair was thick because it would stick down, unmoving, behind her head. If measured, it would easily reveal an inch or more in depth. she had told us several times that her mom would not allow color,perms or pressing combs near her hair. Even so, Carmella considered this type hair the better of all evils. It didn't fly away like her own and didn't unravel to hand limp like Rosa's. This dark stick down hair gave a great reflection when combed. Cheryl (COCO BEAR) looked exactly like her brother... and Rosa could well have been right in her analogy on this one! There was nothing apparently special about this one. At least nothing that met the eye. Every one in her family wore glasses and that is really all I remember of them. She walked to school with us, lived a few doors down from Rosa and was always kind of chubby. I never really saw her parents, they were like the parents in Charlie Brown, dark shadows with voices coming from the inside of her house.

Rosa ~ the quadroon ~ could never have passed for white. She was flaccid yellow, a kind of jaundiced yellow with "white folk hair" or that's what we called it then. She later labeled it "horsetail hair" because it hung like the tails on horses we had seen at a farm. She was the same build as the other girls, not thin or boney. Her hair, the one real difference easily recognizable to Carmella, was straight. Not like barbie or any of the other doll's hair, but more like the hair which made up a horse's tail. Rosa had brown horsetail hair! This must have been what made her so different... so special. Her hair must have been the distinguishing mark that made her important over the other girls. After all, her clothes were much the same as Carmella's and even bought at the same store as Cheryl's. Rosa wore more hand me down dresses because there were two sisters ahead of her who did not wear out their things. The issue of hand me downs proved to be a big deal which obviously annoyed her but that she had no control over. It had to be her hair ~ the only really different thing about Rosa. She was the youngest of seven flaccid yellow brothers and sisters who originated from the green house on "the back street." The back street was merely the street behind our house... we lived on the main street that went through Kingston Green Markham. Carmella, one of the foursome, surely the most active among them... was flaccid yellow but had 'regular' hair which was usually in a 'fly away' condition. She did not have that neat 'hold myself hair' nor the highly desired 'horsetail hair'. When pressed with the hot comb, her's was straight but pulled loose with the slightest activity. When not pressed, it carried a nice wave pattern but still sprouted loose ends as the braids slowly unraveled. She was a giver... thinker... lover of the out doors. This gave her hair every opportunity to 'fly away'. She was the oldest of five children from a box of 'mixed ~ sandwich cookies'. They were raised by a single mother, who was always trying to get somewhere with the nothing she had started with. Except for the help of her mother, and interspersed husbands who were never really there; she raised Carmella and her other children with her best 'know~how'. The back yard and back street was their world. With all of this to consider, I wondered what had happened to turn her into this quadroon thing and did it mean she could no longer be a friend? In all the days we had spent at her house as brownies and then as Girl Scouts, watching her brother Rooney's puppet shows, popping pop corn and walking TUTTI ~ her German Shepard; I had never noticed she was different. In all the let's pretend games... '"play house games" of roasting worms, or picking "weed ~ greens" and pebble eggs, catching light bugs in jars and throwing dirt balls at the boys from down the street, I had not seen the difference. The days spent climbing into and hanging upside down from the tree behind Marsha's house or prompting romance between Barbie, Ken and Midge ~ (until Christie came along); I had failed to see the great difference ... nor had I sought one. What would be the purpose? We were the same age and had since first introduction at Mrs. Sinclair's first grade room, established a long standing acquaintance. An acquaintance which allowed us to call each other friend. We all lived within six or seven houses from each other and each looked fairly well cared for. None of us were skinny, rag~a~muffin girls. None of us were rude, dirty or ill mannered. I reasoned that none were gamely in appearance, although we had not reached the "ugly girl" syndrome ~ YET she was telling us that she was BETTER. I took a closer look at her then than ever before. I went to her church, on invitation, to see if that was the image changing issue. She was Catholic and attended mass. In this service, they spoke for an entire hour in foreign languages... she said it was Latin. I didn't understand a word of it. I peeked up to see if anyone else felt as peculiar as I did at that moment, but they all seemed to be obedient. They stayed on their knees with their heads bent in prayer. Afterwords, I asked if she understood what they were saying and she seconded my suspicions... she said no. Catholic services were always done in Latin and unless you spoke it, no one understood what was said. Cheryl and Marsha once stated that they attended Baptist Services. I had always attended Methodist, sometimes alternating with Baptist ~ depending on the decisions of authoritative figures in our family. My grandfather was a minister from the south, with very determined and astute intentions on having a family with a strong religious foundation. In our church every word spoken was understood. My Grandmother was always the church usher... matron... treasurer... IT WAS THE NORM.

1995